Sen. Stacey Campfield, left, is congratulated by colleagues after his bill seeking to prevent teaching public school students about gay issues passes the Senate in Nashville, Tenn., on May 20, 2011. (AP Photo/Erik Schelzig)

(Newser)
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Martha Boggs is being touted as a hero after kicking Tennessee GOP state Sen. Stacey Campfield out of her Knoxville restaurant last weekend. Campfield is the controversial author of the state's "Don't Say Gay" bill, and he got even more controversial in a recent interview during which he said, among other things, that AIDS came from "one guy screwing a monkey ... and then having sex with men."

Boggs, owner of the Bistro at the Bijou, had recently read those comments by Campfield, so when she saw him waiting to be seated for brunch, she made a "spur of the moment" decision to "stand up for the gay community and everybody else who has ever been bullied by a bully like Stacey Campfield," she says in an interview. She says she explained to Campfield he wasn't welcome and asked him to leave, but doesn't remember exactly what she said since she was "kind of mad" at the time. Restaurant patrons applauded after he left. See the Huffington Post for the full interview.